Matt PREST

(NSW)

Image: Matt Prest.

Matt Prest is a theatre maker with a background in performance and installation. His work focuses on the audience experience of theatre as a live art form. He always works with other artists across disciplines in devised processes to create original works in which intimacy, danger, laughter, surrealism, dancing, music and space all play are key role in shaping a visceral experience for the audience.

His significant works to date include The Tent (2008, Melbourne) performed for an audience of 25 who were served a homemade beef stew inside a custom-built tent in a disused car park in inner city Melbourne (toured to Sydney, Darwin and Perth); Hole in the Wall with Clare Britton (2010, Melbourne, Sydney) which placed the audience in small, movable rooms to create a disorienting, morphing architecture for a performance; and Whelping Box with Branch Nebula and Clare Britton (2012, Sydney) which positioned the audience in a giant 10m x 10m whelping box/dog-fighting ring as 2 men performed a series of strange and exhausting tasks an attempt to transcend their physical limits.

Matt is currently developing a new work with Clare Britton called Room Noise and is a recipient of the Australia Councilʼs Creative Australia Fellowship for Young and Emerging Artists.

SITUATE Art in Festivals is a Salamanca Arts Centre project for Early Career Artists assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.